1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electrical device for interconnecting two printed circuit boards (PCBs), and particularly to an electrical device for interconnecting two parallel PCBs at a large distance.
2. Description of Related Art
Board mountable connectors are widely used to establish electrical connections between two separated PCBs. Usually, there are two connectors, a plug connector and a receptacle connector, respectively mounted onto the PCBs and engagable with each other. However, the conventional method using plug and receptacle connectors has been limited. In some situations, PCBs may be positioned within an electrical system at a large distance, where the plug and receptacle connectors have to span the large distance and thus would be fairly tall. A tall connector has greater tolerances associated with it and may undesirably expand and contract greatly over temperature variations. This may possibly cause unreliable electrical coupling between two PCBs. Furthermore, the large distance between the PCBs would also require the plug and receptacle connectors to be fairly high and therefore expensive and difficult to manufacture.
One solution to the above issue is to provide two identical board mountable connectors respectively mounted on the two PCBs, and an extender engagable with the board mountable connectors. The extender includes an insulative housing, being generally “H”-shaped, and a plurality of conductive contacts received in passageways defined in the housing. When an extender is needed for a high stack height application, the contacts are usually long. This results in difficulties of inserting the contacts into the passageways of the housing without damage.
Another solution to the above issue is to provide an expensive cable assembly with two connectors at opposite ends to respectively connect with two PCBs. However, with electronic signal speeds currently in the gigahertz range and still increasing, deleterious transmission line effects have become more prevalent. The electrical connection of two PCBs by way of wire cables and connectors, often results in relatively long transmission lines between the two boards, allowing unwanted signal loss to exist. To mitigate these effects, shorter transmission lines between the two PCBs are advantageous.
Accordingly, there is a need for providing an effective and economical solution for the requirement of a high stack height application. To that end, the use of some kind of cost-effective PCB interconnection device, which ensures reliable electrical connection between two PCBs and provides an easy assembly, is desirable.